Debate stimulus

The debate

The Republicans had their, what, 1,000th debate last night. This one was in FL ahead of Tuesday’s primary vote. There was none of the open acrimony that marked the Democrat debate a few days ago.

Romney was the clear winner. Sharp, on point, best prepared, most presidential and the best dressed guy on stage, MSNBC clearly hated him. Romney played the Washington outsider at every chance placing oblique enfilade fire directly on his closest competitor – McCain the consummate Washington insider – without ever mentioning McCain by name. Brilliant! Thank God MSNBC finally brought up Romney’s religion …for what was at least the millionth time. This time it was in the form of a poll. 44% of Americans it seems have some reservation about a Mormon as President. Romney swatted it away saying he didn’t believe 44% of Americans couldn’t understand the “no religious test” verbiage found in the Constitution. He also noted that when issues are defined in the general election, faith is not going to be as important as the Shrillda Beast’s liberalism compared with his conservatism.

McCain looked old and said nothing new or particularly inspiring. He was the obvious favorite of MSNBC. While they peppered Romney with tough questions, they lobbed softballs to McCain, which he surprisingly seemed to have trouble catching up to. MSNBC noted that McCain’s most serious short coming might be his temper. No. His most serious short coming was his brazen assault on the First Amendment for political gain. His second most serious short coming was that he advocated opening our borders and giving amnesty to 12-20 million illegal aliens (Immigration never came up in the debate). His third most serious short coming is that he expects the US to destroy its economy to save the environment while China and India are expected to do nothing but grow their economies by 12-15% every year while spewing millions of tons more pollutants into the air than the US could even dream of. His fourth most serious short coming is that he voted against tax cuts before voting to make them permanent. This is the myth being pushed by the media. The myth is, that except for topic A (fill in the blank) McCain is the best conservative candidate. The reality is, except for topics A, B, C, D, etc. on through to about topic triple X, McCain is the best conservative candidate – and you have to go about half way down the list before there is anything about his temper.

Giuliani looked good, but sadly I get the feeling that he waited too long.

Ron Paul was Ron Paul - solid on domestic issues but can’t close the deal on a US international policy consisting of us sticking our heads in the sand while Islamo-terror-fascists try to kill us.

Huckabee was good on the fair tax and shut Russert down when Tim tried to interrupt saying it was unrealistic to think it’d be passed into law.

What was clear last night was that the media are going to try to take the successes in the Iraq war and dangers of illegal immigration off the table during the general election. Instead they are going to insert high gas prices, unemployment, unstable markets and rising unemployment as the issues of the day.

The stimulus package.

If Mitt Romney promised everyone in the swing state of Ohio a $50 check for voting for him, the government would put him in jail. Aside from the amount of money being offered, how is the unpaid for “stimulus package” any different? At least Romney could pay for his plan. The government is just going to print more money and ask the post office to deliver it to Americans. I’m happy that the money is out of government hands, but it seems to me unless there is corresponding off-set to government spending somewhere – we’re only making the problem worse. I don’t think it’s any kind of profile in courage for politicians to be in favor of sending voters $300 checks in the mail during an election year. It is quite the opposite.